Degrees of Liver Damage from the Various 17AA Orals?

[Sqwattz]

So I got into a half assed argument today with one of my training partners about the comparative degrees of liver damage between orals that are typically considered "harsh" and those considered "gentle". In the end, we agreed that it was basically a speculative argument since neither one of us has regular liver function tests taken. I hope people can weigh in who have their livers monitored while on cycle and could compare the results from a cycle using a "harsh" oral vs a "gentle" one. If not I'm happy to hear the speculation too. The argument started because I was telling him how I just began my cycle today and that I was kick starting it with a combo of 20mg Dbol & 20 mg Halo per day for 4 weeks. He answered that he always wanted to try Halo but he didn't want to fuck up his liver. I reminded him that he usually uses 80-100mg of Anavar a day for a couple of months at a clip and he responded with "yeah bro, but it's only anavar." My thinking on this has always been to use the stronger and more effective orals but use them in low to moderate doses. First, let me say I'm not a big abuser of orals in the first place. I tend to only use them to kick start cycles with long esters and once in a blue moon I'll throw in some halo and dbol preworkout for a little extra kick in the ass to get through my toughest training days. It's not so much that I'm afraid of liver damage as it is that I just think the injectables do a better job in that most muscle and strength gained with orals is short lived. So the question is which do you think would do more damage to the liver in the example I gave. We'll keep the time element constant for comparison's sake and say 20mg Halo/20mg Dbol vs 80mg Anavar for 6 weeks. Which stresses the liver more? I figure all three are 17 alpha alkylated so one shouldn't be that much worse than the next.

 

[Dallashunk]

Interesting thread, I too am curious what others experiences are with orals and bloodwork, personally Ive never tried any orals, but have considered it

 

[Superjohn3]

After 8 weeks of var at 40-80mgs/day my liver values were in the normal range. I was an idiot for running it solo, and saw very minor results. From what I hear from sources on here it can really mess up values, perhaps mine wasn't up to snuff.

 

[Papa Van Smack]

I've had a weekend long drinking binge and felt....I mean FELT my liver on the Monday/Tuesday of the next week, along w/ my hangover. I have never once felt the same thing on a cycle of orals.

I understand this is a tad off from your question. My experience involves vodka, dbol, drol, winny, and superdrol.

 

[rradam]

FWIW - m1t wrecked my liver (among other things) years ago, using milk thistle and NAC. I don't have the numbers anymore but they were pretty bad.

Recently I guinea-pigged myself and ran var and mechabol together, along with liv52. My values were normal or on the lower side of normal. I've done several others (one at a time, moderate doses, 4-6 weeks, with various protections), but never had my values tested for them.

 

[Stewie]

I would suspect the affirmative answer is unknown, in other words to say Yes that one 17aa is more hepatoxic than the other is subjective to the individual. Remember, The Liver is a key organ actively involved in numerous metabolic and detoxifying functions. If one was using or abusing another hepatoxic substance(s) the consequence of liver impairment would obviously be several fold more damaging, with the probability of heptocelluar carcinoma, cholestatic jaundice, ect, ect. The liver is continuously exposed to high levels of endogenous and exogenous oxidants that are by-products of many biochemical pathways and, in fact, it has been demonstrated that intracellular oxidant production is more active in liver than in tissues, like the increase of inflammatory cytokines.

Some may agree, as some may disagree. This is again, is subjective to the individual.

 

[Sqwattz]

I've had a weekend long drinking binge and felt....I mean FELT my liver on the Monday/Tuesday of the next week, along w/ my hangover. I have never once felt the same thing on a cycle of orals.

I understand this is a tad off from your question. My experience involves vodka, dbol, drol, winny, and superdrol.

I've been there though one positive about steroids for me is that when I'm on cycle I don't allow myself the benders.

 

[Sqwattz]

FWIW - m1t wrecked my liver (among other things) years ago, using milk thistle and NAC. I don't have the numbers anymore but they were pretty bad.

Recently I guinea-pigged myself and ran var and mechabol together, along with liv52. My values were normal or on the lower side of normal. I've done several others (one at a time, moderate doses, 4-6 weeks, with various protections), but never had my values tested for them.

Interesting post. My buddy would have loved it. I don't have any experience with M1T or Mechabol. Are these PH's or Designer Steriods? I know Superdrol is considered to be harsh.

 

[Sqwattz]

Really informative post and I agree that toxicity levels will vary from individual to individual, especially if you factor in other medicines. That's not really a concern for me though because aside from AAS and aromatase inhibitors I don't take any medication. I suppose the only way for me to get an accurate answer would be take a baseline liver function test then do one month of halo/dbol @20 mg each and monitor the change. Then give my liver time to recuperate, take another baseline and then check it again after a month of Anavar @ 80mg. Guess the only truth is in numbers, but my gut is telling me the higher dose would do more harm. At best it would be close and if that's the case I'll stick with my combo since I get better strength gains from it than I ever did with a mega dose of Var.

 

[Kaladryn]

Just remember this, all 17aa orals have the SAME AMOUNT of 17aa. The exception would be some designer steroids are double bonded 17aa.

Because of this, theoretically, all these orals are equal harsh on the liver mg for mg.

Liver enzymes mean almost nothing for bodybuilders because you can never know how much of elevations are from exercise. Muscle damage releases AST and ALT into the blood stream, you can easily have 2x normal range elevations just from a workout.

 

[Sqwattz]

Just remember this, all 17aa orals have the SAME AMOUNT of 17aa. The exception would be some designer steroids are double bonded 17aa.

Because of this, theoretically, all these orals are equal harsh on the liver mg for mg.

Liver enzymes mean almost nothing for bodybuilders because you can never know how much of elevations are from exercise. Muscle damage releases AST and ALT into the blood stream, you can easily have 2x normal range elevations just from a workout.

Yes-this is basically what I've been thinking it's just that when you read the profiles of halotestin and anavar you're always reminded that halo is extremely toxic and should only be run in low doses for short periods of time while the profiles of anavar invariably extoll it for it's mild effects on the liver. It always seemed baseless to me as both are 17 AA. I guess I should have asked if these characteristics that get bandied about are based on any legitimate studies or if they're anecdotal.

I wasn't aware that muscle damage elevates liver enzyme levels. Good knowledge to have.

 

[Sqwattz]

BTW post#9 was in response to Stewie's post. I just forgot to quote it.

 

[rradam]

Just remember this, all 17aa orals have the SAME AMOUNT of 17aa. The exception would be some designer steroids are double bonded 17aa.

Because of this, theoretically, all these orals are equal harsh on the liver mg for mg.

Liver enzymes mean almost nothing for bodybuilders because you can never know how much of elevations are from exercise. Muscle damage releases AST and ALT into the blood stream, you can easily have 2x normal range elevations just from a workout.

you mean the double methyl like superdrol (2aa,17aa)?


As for m1t and mechabol yes, they are/were "designers". m1t being 5a-reduced dbol, or methylated-dhb; however you want to call it. mechabol is essentially methylated clostebol.

 

[Sqwattz]

I've never been too keen on messing with any of these designer steriods. I'm under the impression that they're basically steroids that the pharmaceutical companies rejected either because they were ineffective or because the level of side effects were unacceptable. Also isn't clostebol just injectable tbol which would make mechabol, being methylated clostebol, the same thing as tbol?

 

[Ehren]

Just remember this, all 17aa orals have the SAME AMOUNT of 17aa. The exception would be some designer steroids are double bonded 17aa.

Because of this, theoretically, all these orals are equal harsh on the liver mg for mg.

Liver enzymes mean almost nothing for bodybuilders because you can never know how much of elevations are from exercise. Muscle damage releases AST and ALT into the blood stream, you can easily have 2x normal range elevations just from a workout.

Kaladryn, what do you think of the Toxicity claimed by users of Methyl Tren. It would seem that because doses are in micrograms, liver toxicity would be nearly nil, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I guess the question is, is something else beside methylation in these orals responsible for raising liver enzymes on such low doses? Are some of the orals just inherently toxic, even unmethylated?

 

[Kaladryn]

you mean the double methyl like superdrol (2aa,17aa)?


As for m1t and mechabol yes, they are/were "designers". m1t being 5a-reduced dbol, or methylated-dhb; however you want to call it. mechabol is essentially methylated clostebol.

Yep that is pretty much what I meant. I'm not really up to speed on all the 'designers' but I have seen the insane liver enzymes some people get on superdrol. No pharmaceutically available oral AAS is even close to this bad. Sounds like you know more than I do about these.

Kaladryn, what do you think of the Toxicity claimed by users of Methyl Tren. It would seem that because doses are in micrograms, liver toxicity would be nearly nil, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I guess the question is, is something else beside methylation in these orals responsible for raising liver enzymes on such low doses? Are some of the orals just inherently toxic, even unmethylated?

I don't really know, but remember unless you are seeing liver enzymes higher than 2x normal range, it could just be exercise induced. Also there are so many other factors that can acutely raise AST/ALT.

My advice is, use injectables whenever possible, stick to tried and true orals if necessary, keep doses of orals low and keep time on orals short. Fuck prohormones and designers. Do NOT go by the PDR when it comes to dosing drol, lol

 

[Landmonster]

My advice is, use injectables whenever possible, stick to tried and true orals if necessary, keep doses of orals low and keep time on orals short. Fuck prohormones and designers. Do NOT go by the PDR when it comes to dosing drol, lol

This seems to be good advice, but can you elaborate on this?

Point 1) What are the "tried and true" orals, that we should have any business considering?

Point 2) How would you determine when it is "necessary" to use an oral? Bulking assistance, cutting assistance, hardening, pre-contest only.... etc? For bodybuilders, powerlifters, or both?

Point 3) If you were most inclined to use orals as a bodybuilder, what would you use and when? (Keeping doses and compounds to a minimum)

 

[Necrias]

Kaladryn, what do you think of the Toxicity claimed by users of Methyl Tren. It would seem that because doses are in micrograms, liver toxicity would be nearly nil, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I guess the question is, is something else beside methylation in these orals responsible for raising liver enzymes on such low doses? Are some of the orals just inherently toxic, even unmethylated?

I recently tested the toxicity of oral tren, and it was greatly exaggerated. I wish I had the actual number on hand, but here is the story:

Week 0- Blood work done, several months off orals, all values normal
Week 1- 1mg MT per day
Week 2&3- 2mg MT per day
Week 4- 3mg MT per day, labs at end of week, liver enzymes elevated 10% over baseline but still normal range

At this point I decided to test the supposed toxicity of orals over a greater length of time, so I repeated the above cycle with no break, plus I added Drol in at 50-100mg per day. I spent 8 weeks on MT, the last 4 of which included a moderate dose of Anadrol, and at the end my tests came back at the same levels as week 4. I was also on 1500mg of Test E and 500mg of Tren E the whole time. At the end of this I was 16 weeks out from a show and thought about running orals the whole way through... however, common sense got the best of me so I'm waiting till 8 weeks out to repeat something similar to the above. As you can imagine the results were fantastic though

Long story short, I think the toxicity of orals is greatly exaggerated, especially if you ramp/wave your doses like I do. It is when alcohol and rec drugs get added to the mix that most people have problems!

EDIT: forgot to add, 3mg of MT did make my blood pressure go sky high! Actually got nose bleeds taking a dump lol. That is why I only stayed at that dose for a week